let time go by so slow

It is a grey day, one in a long series of very grey and very hard days, and I can feel it in my very bones. I press myself up against the railing, leaning my elbows on it and letting my weight rest. Raising my cup to my lips, I sip the tea, shocked by and thankful for the sharp mating of ginger and lemon. I cradle my cup, closing my eyes and letting the brackish wind whip through my hair.

Opening my eyes, I stare across the river at the opposite shoreline. I know that place well, have climbed its rocks and run its damp sands. Today, it is covered in water. The rocks where I sat and giggled and whispered and tilted my face to a fireworks-speckled sky have vanished. I can just make out the places where we crept down the banks, the bushes near the path, the sandy place we set up lawn chairs. It all seems different, almost foreign, with the high tide.

I think that life is like that, too. We play and dance and weep and tell secrets and share joys and fall in love. We become familiar, intimate, with the landscapes of our lives, but somehow, it almost always feels like we're treading water—or even underwater. In times of our lives, too, the tide falls, the veil schisms, the doors open, our feet touch dry ground, and we glimpse, Oh. So this is what that means.

A man paddles by, as I watch, and oh, what I would do to step into his canoe and glide away down the river. But I track his progress and I realize, That's not my place. I think right now, I need to keep my feet planted on the land, my eyes fastened to the shore. I need to stay here, watching the tide. Maybe one day, if I keep looking, I'll see what's under the choking waters. I'll watch as the rocks peep out; I'll realize the true shape of the banks. I'll understand that this is what that meant, and I'll know that everything really was good, all along.


But maybe, just maybe, the waters will never recede, I'll never see, and all I'm meant to do is learn to trust the Mover of the tides . . .